


While It's Hot

by Zykaben



Series: Zykaben's Tim Appreciation Week Collection [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Misunderstandings, Season/Series 01, Tea, not tagged as ship but it's a lil gay ngl, quickly followed by communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24004171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zykaben/pseuds/Zykaben
Summary: Tim has never been able to stand hot drinks of any kind, including tea. This is very much at odds with the fact that Martin gives him a mug of tea almost every day and Tim thanks him for it. He just can't say no, even if he won't drink any of it. And what Martin doesn't know won't hurt him.Until Martin finds him pouring his tea down the sink, that is.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker
Series: Zykaben's Tim Appreciation Week Collection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729294
Comments: 11
Kudos: 125
Collections: Gen Works Bc I Am A Salty Aro, Tim Stoker Appreciation Week





	While It's Hot

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 2 of Tim Appreciation Week! This one is for the prompt Drinks.
> 
> Huge thank you to [Ostentenacity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ostentenacity/) for betaing this!
> 
> Thank you for reading and please be sure to bookmark, leave kudos, and comment!

Tim's neuroses about drinks were many, but they essentially boiled down to this: he could not stand hot beverages.

If there was liquid that he was meant to consume, it had to be cold. Water, milk, coffee, tea, hot chocolate—if a drink was anywhere above room temperature, Tim would simply take the soonest possible chance to dump it down the sink. _Sometimes_ he would go to the trouble of putting whatever hot drink he had somehow taken ownership of into the fridge, coming by to collect it only once it had reached an acceptable temperature.

Was it strange? Absolutely. Tim was well aware that this particular quirk of his was weird as all hell. But knowing that it was weird didn’t exactly change anything—didn’t change the fact that he disliked something as universally loved as _hot chocolate._ God, Danny always used to tease him about adding ice to his mug whenever their mum made them some, telling Tim that he may as well just drink chocolate milk instead.

But it wasn’t like it really affected Tim’s life most days. He just drank cold brew or ordered his coffee iced instead of piping hot. And sure, when he did that in the dead of winter he sometimes got a weird glance or two, but that was pretty much it. The whole thing was fine.

Well, it _had_ been fine. But now there was… a bit of a problem.

Tim had literally no idea how to explain to Martin that he’d rather not be brought tea.

Because here was the thing. Martin was _so_ nice and helpful and kind, and he gave Tim a warm mug of tea each morning when he came in, and it was _always_ accompanied by a smile that was equal parts sunny and shy and sweet and apprehensive. And Tim couldn’t just—it would be impossible for him to look Martin right in his round, open face and tell him that no, actually, Tim didn’t want any tea, thanks. Tim knew he didn’t have the full picture or anything, but Martin had this perpetually nervous energy about him, like he was ready for anyone and everyone to tell him off. Which was fair enough, considering how Jon acted towards him.

Everyone knew that Jon very adamantly disliked Martin. Tim wasn’t ready to call whatever Jon felt hatred quite yet, but it was veering dangerously close. And that in and of itself would have been—well, it wouldn’t have been great, but it could have been fine. Tim had worked with people he didn’t like before and, so long as they weren’t a total monster, Tim could be civil.

Jon apparently couldn’t be bothered with that, though.

Martin had come out of Jon’s office far too many times with his shoulders hunched inwards, face twisted in dejection, eyes watery and downcast, hands held in fidgeting fists by his sides. Then, the second that he noticed Tim or Sasha looking at him, Martin would conjure up a smile, a wide and weak and fraying thing, and tell them that he was going to go and make himself some tea. He’d ask if Tim wanted any for himself, if Sasha would like a cup, too.

How the fuck was Tim supposed to say no? To do that to _Martin_ of all people, especially when he was so obviously looking for him and Sasha to say yes?

Tim couldn’t. He just fucking couldn’t.

And by this point, Tim was in _way_ too deep to just pop over to Martin’s desk and let him know that he didn’t drink tea. That every warm, steaming mug Martin had made for him was being surreptitiously poured down a drain or dumped into a potted plant, all of Martin’s care and effort being wasted along with it. That Tim had been doing this for over a month, had been doing this since day one of Martin bringing him a cuppa.

So here Tim was, accepting hot tea that he would never drink from an adorably anxious colleague, all because he was too softhearted to say anything that would hurt Martin’s feelings.

Honestly, Tim would be fine taking this secret to his grave if he thought he could manage it. Because that was the thing, wasn’t it. Tim could take every precaution he wanted, go to great pains to keep Martin ignorant, but things like this had a way of _always_ getting out in the end.

This was all to say that when Martin came into the break room while Tim was in the midst of upending his mug of lukewarm tea into the sink, Tim couldn’t bring himself to be overly surprised. Didn’t mean he didn’t freeze up like a deer in the headlights, though. Martin was doing something similar.

The sound of the tea sloshing into the sink and then flowing down the drain was thunderous for the few moments it lasted. It echoed in Tim’s ears during the several seconds of suffocating silence that followed.

“Oh,” Martin breathed out, voice small and surprised. “O-oh. Um, sorry, I was… I was just coming in to grab something, I didn’t—”

“No, no, you’re fine, you don’t have to apologize,” Tim hastily assured him. “It’s the break room, anyone can come in. Not like I own the place or something.”

“… Right.” And now Martin’s shoulders were slouching forward and his eyes were looking at his feet and he was shuffling towards whatever it was he had apparently came in here for and _fuck_ Tim could not let this stand. He refused to be another Jon in Martin’s life.

“Hey,” Tim started, faltering when Martin came to a jerky, sudden stop. “Um, I would say it’s not what it looks like, but it _kind of_ is. I promise it’s not because of whatever you’re thinking it is, though.”

There was a pause, a moment where Tim thought Martin might ignore him, but then Martin turned his head to look at him. He didn’t look like he was going to cry, not from what Tim could see, but he only made eye contact with Tim for a few seconds before his gaze flitted away again.

“Look, it—it’s fine,” Martin sighed. Tim hated how resigned it sounded. “I get it, okay? I know that I can be—that it’s—I’m sorry for—for being so overbearing. I won’t try to force you to—”

“Woah, hold up,” Tim interjected, bringing up his hand in a relaxed, placating gesture. “Martin, you’re absolutely _not_ being ‘overbearing,’ okay? And if Jon is saying shit like that then—”

 _That_ had Martin springing to attention and staring right at Tim. “Wh—no! Jon hasn’t—he didn’t say anything like that, I promise. I just… you’re in here dumping your tea in the sink and I don’t know why so—I mean, um. Unless this is the first time that you’ve done it…?”

And there it was, the perfect out. Martin had practically handed it to him on a silver platter. Tim wouldn’t have to say anything or explain. He could just tell one little lie and then forget the whole thing altogether.

… But he just _knew_ that Martin would stop bringing him tea, would stop asking if Tim even wanted any. Would assume that Tim was a prat who liked wasting his co-worker’s time and that he agreed with whoever the fuck thought Martin was “overbearing” and all of that was just _not on._

“No, it’s not,” Tim said. “I’ve been… doing this for a while, actually. But it’s not—look, it’s weird, alright?”

Martin gave a weak, one-shoulder shrug. “You don’t have to—”

“I don’t like tea.”

Absolute dead silence.

Martin was unabashedly _gawking_ at him, looking like he’d just been backhanded across the face. It would have been funny, maybe even cute, if Tim didn’t feel so goddamn embarrassed.

“You… don’t like tea?”

“I know, I know,” Tim sighed out, trying more for mockingly dramatic than weary, “I’m English, it’s a sin, and all that rot. I just… don’t.”

“… You don’t have to lie.”

“I am being completely serious, a hundred percent truthful. The worst part is that it’s not even just tea, it’s anything that I have to drink that’s warm. I just don’t like it.”

Martin seemed to turn that over in his head for a bit. “Soup?”

“Soup is a food and it doesn’t count. I will die on that hill.”

Oh, was that a hint of a _smile_ on Martin’s face now? “So… any hot drink?”

Tim nodded, letting a sheepish smile of his own overtake his face. “Any. Coffee, cider, milk, hot chocolate, _tea,_ it doesn’t matter. If it’s not ice-cold then I can’t drink it. I’m pretty sure it’s because I needed _something_ to balance out my dazzling charm.”

Martin smiled properly at that, a quick, amused exhale through his nose accompanying it. Tim counted it as a step in the right direction, if not a victory.

“I told you, it’s weird.”

“A bit, yeah. But if you didn’t like it, why didn’t you say anything?”

And there it was, the million-dollar question.

“Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“I couldn’t say no.” Seeing the way that Martin started to curl in on himself again, Tim hastened to add, “I didn’t _want_ to say no. I just—look, I can’t explain it right. You were offering and I was more than happy to say please and thank you and _not_ draw any attention to my whole thing. And then you asked again and I said yes and soon a week had gone by and at that point it was _way_ too late to say anything.”

“So you’ve been, what, agreeing to take drinks you’ll never actually drink because you… didn’t want to tell me you didn’t like tea?” Martin asked.

That wasn’t _quite_ what it was but Tim felt as though he’d shared enough for now. “Yeah, exactly.”

Martin blinked once, twice. Then he started giggling.

Tim couldn’t have fought down his grin even if he tried. “Yeah, that’s right, laugh it up.”

“N-no, I just,” Martin said once he managed to get a hold of himself, “it’s so _silly._ You could have told me instead of, of—”

“Sneaking around about it?”

“ _Yes_!” And with that Martin set himself off again, trying to smother his laughter behind his hands. Tim kind of loved it.

“Well, that _would_ have been smart,” Tim drawled out, “but all’s well that ends well, right? And, for what it’s worth, I _am_ sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I just had no clue how to bring it up.”

“No, it’s fine, I get it.” And what a difference Martin saying that made when he was smiling and coming down from being giddy instead of looking miserable. “I think I would have been _way_ more awkward about it, so. Apology accepted.”

Tim clapped a friendly hand over Martin’s shoulder, noting the way he stiffened at the initial contact but relaxed quickly. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, I actually do have to go and do _some_ work, unfortunately. I’ll see you around.”

“Tim, we work in the same area, of course you’ll see me.”

“Is that sass? Did you just sass me, Martin Blackwood?”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but—”

“It was! Oh, what a discovery—”

Needless to say, when Tim did get back into the archives, it was walking with Martin at his side and the two of them chatting away.

* * *

The next time Martin brought tea around, he handed Tim a mug.

“Oh, uh, thanks Martin, but—”

Martin cut him off. “No, it’s—I think you’ll like it.”

… Well, Tim couldn’t say he wasn’t intrigued.

He reached out to take the mug from Martin, perking up instantly as his fingers came into contact with cold ceramic. He eagerly took it from Martin.

“Oh my god, is this chocolate milk?”

Martin gave that smile of his again, all wonderful and hesitant and warm. “Yeah. I figured that it was a safe bet? I mean, unless—”

“No, I love it,” Tim reassured. “Thanks, Martin.”

And damn if Martin’s smile wasn’t as bright as the sun when Tim took a sip.

**Author's Note:**

> Tim's feelings about hot drinks are based on my own up until I was about 16 years old. And even now I'm not a huge fan of them, lmao.


End file.
